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Sounding rockets as platforms for instrumentand spacecraft technology development

 About sounding rockets

The various sounding rockets currentlyavailable through the LCAS programprovide• Altitudes from a few hundred kms to1000+ kms.• Telemetry at bandwidths that greatlyexceed what is typically available on asatellite.• Launches into high or low latitude regions

(Poker Flat in Alaska, White Sands in NewMexico and Wallops Island in Virginia areroutine; other locations possible on acampaign basis).• A high degree of flexibility with regard tomission concepts.• Flight times lasting ~15 minutes or more.

How sounding rockets provide aneffective testbed for technology 

development 

Sounding rockets have long been thetraditional development platform for spaceinstrumentation. Many of the reliable andeffective instruments currently in operationon various satellites have been developed,in part, on sounding rockets.

The rocket program, through the LCASportion of the ROSS announcement,provides annual opportunities for science-driven missions. While these missions areoften used for instrument development,sounding rockets can also be used todevelop spacecraft technology.

Types of missions

The objectives of any particular missionare driven by science. At the same time,the flexibility provided by a rocket is well-suited to unique tasks. For example:

• The Enstrophy mission, designed jointly by theUniversity of New Hampshire and JPL, was both anauroral science mission and a feasibility test for ultra-low-resource “sensorcraft”. Each of 4 hockey-puck sized free-flyers carried a power and telemetrysystem, a magnetometer and sun sensors.Thesetiny spacecraft provided the opportunity to design

within very low resource boundaries and to test theoutcome in a realistic environment, while alsoproviding new observations of spatial and temporalstructure of auroral currents.• In conjunction with the Johns Hopkins Astro-2rocket, GSFC developed a SiC coating procedurefor large mirrors. This technique was then applied tothe Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope, increasing thesensitivity by a factor of 3. The same technique wasalso used on the Far Ultraviolet SpectroscopicExplorer (FUSE), and enabled the mission toremain successful in spite of a descope of theproject from $300M to $100M.

Combining research in ionospheric 

 physics, aeronomy and astronomy with technology development 

New missions consistently point to theneed for increasing complexity, whichtypically implies multiple (i.e., smaller) andmore efficient payloads, precisionformations, etc. The need for multi-pointmeasurements is clear.

Many of the same techniques that requiredevelopment for advanced satellitemissions can also be used to provideuseful data on sounding rockets. Certainly,multiple payloads (with the associatedrequirements of payload stability,positioning, attitude knowledge andcontrol, stability, etc.,) are often used withsounding rocket missions. These samemissions have also provided a steadystream of excellent science.

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 A wide range of possibilities, thirsty 

for new ideas...

 Aside from providing a platform for addressing targeted science objectives,sounding rockets traditionally provide a

test and development platform for instrument development and validation.Historically, this has always been animportant role for sounding rockets andmany different types of instruments havebenefited from this situation

However, sounding rockets can alsoprovide a testbed for technologydevelopment. Only on a sounding rocketcan techniques and devices be tested in

free-fall and under vacuum for a relativelylow-cost in terms of time and money.Testing and integration very similar to whatis required for satellites.

Possible examples include precisionformation flying concepts, nano-satellitestests (i.e., telemetry, deployment andstability issues), deployment/releasemechanisms, laser-based communications

(both between spacecraft and from groundto spacecraft), attitude determination andcontrol of small spacecraft, etc.

Note that with regard to precision formationflying, sounding rocket platforms includethe possibility of acquiring GPSmeasurements of the locations of thevarious spacecraft with high precision,providing an easy means of evaluating theresults of the test.

From the classroom to the

launchpad....

The sounding rocket program is very well-suited to student participation. For example, students at Dartmouth College

(funded by the New Hampshire SpaceGrant) are developing aspects of small-satellites in support of the upcomingMagCon mission. The goal has beennarrowed to developing aspects of a smallsatellite that includes a magnetometer,telemetry and power. The students are notplanning on actually building a workingsatellite, but are focusing their efforts onresolving payload separation and stabilityissues. The first step (in progress) is to

build a simple model that includes a spin-up and separation system and to test thison the KC-135 Vomit Comet. Afterwards,the goal is to carry out more extensivetests onboard a sounding rocket, in a “real”space environment, including poweredflight, telemetry issues, etc. These types of experiences provide excellent teachingopportunities, with possibly significantcontributions to actual missions.

Where will the future lead?

Rockets will continue to be a mainstay of space exploration because of their usefulness as a development tool. Thefuture is bright, with exciting opportunitieslimited only by imagination. Possibleexamples for the future include:

• The use of hybrid fuels, allowing rocket

motors to be throttled to provide variablethrust.• Tests involving atmospheric effects onlaser-based ground-to-spacecraftcommunications.• The incorporation of MEM-manufacturedcomponents, such as gyros.

Marc Lessard, University of New Hampshire,marc.lessard@unh.eduKristina Lynch, Dartmouth College,kristina.lynch@dartmouth.edu